Laugh: yes because when some guy weeps somewhere in the world there is always some other guy who laughs somewhere else: happy balance! Never fails its normal equilibrium: laugh or cry it all comes out the same in the end!

May 12, 2009

A Matter of Enthusiasm

I shall soon be quite dead at lastMalone tells us at the beginningof his story.

What a superb openingwhat a fabulous sentence.

With such a sentenceMalone announces his deathand at the same time delays it.

In fact all of Malone’s storyis but an adjournment.

Malone even managesto defer his deathuntil the end of eternity.

Thatsoon is such a vague word.

How much time is soon?Hoe does one measure soon?

Normal people sayI’ll be dead in ten yearsor I’ll be dead before I’m eightyor I’ll be dead by the end of this weekQuite dead at lastMalone specifies.

Unlike Malone prone in bedscribbling the story of his deathwith his little pencil stubnormal standing peoplelike to be preciseconcerning their death.

Oh how they would loveto know in advancethe exact date and timeof their death.

How relieved they would beto know exactly whenthey would depart fromthe great cunt of existencein Malone’s own wordsto plunge into the great lieof the afterlife.

How happy they would beif when they emerge into lifethe good doctoror the one responsiblefor having expelled theminto existencewould tell them you will die at 15:30on December 22, 1989.

Could Sam have writtenI shall soon be quite dead at lasthad he known in advancewhen he would change tense?

Certainly notbecause as Malone tells usa bit further in his story

I shall die tepidwithout enthusiasm.

Does that mean on the contraryof those idiots on this bitch of an earthwho explode themselves with fervorto reach the illusion of paradisewhile taking with them other mortalsthat Malone’s lack of enthusiasmtowards his own death is a clever wayof delaying the act of dying?

A lack of enthusiasm for somethingis always a way of postponingthe terms of that something.

The soon of Malone mocksthe permanence of deathand his lack of enthusiasmridicules the expression at last.

And so before he reaches the endof the first page of his storyMalone has already succeededin postponing his death toSaint John the Baptist’s Dayand even the Fourteenth of July.Malone even believes he might be ableto resist until theTransfigurationnot to speak of the Assumptionwhich certainly throws some doubtas to what really happenedon that mythical dayor what will happen to Maloneif he manages to hang on until then.

In fact Malone defies his own deathby giving himselfbirth into deathas he explains at the end of his story.

All is ready. Except me. I am beinggiven, if I may venture the expression,birth to into death, such is my impression.The feet are clear already,of the great cunt of existence.Favorable presentation I trust.My head will be the last to die.Haul in your hands. I can’t.The render rents, My story endedI’ll be living yet. Promising lag.That is the end of me. I shall say I no more.

Nothing more to add this evening.Malone said it all for me.I can go to sleep calmly now.Good night everybody.

Her whole family is preditory. That father of hers complaining HARD about his $150,000/year salary.Now we all know where she gets it. Should be automated anyways. You let the blacks in New Orleans off.Barely skilled labor.Reincarnated as milking cows, ironically.

2002 THE TWILIGHT OF THE BUMS (Microfiction, with George Chambers). Altx Press [Boulder, Colorado] Also available as an E- book from Altx.com. German translation (Suhrkamp Verlag), 1998, under the title Penner-Rap. Radio play adaptation under the title The Dialogues of the Bums, Bayerischer Rundfunk, 1997.

2001 LOOSE SHOES: A life Story of Sorts (Fiction in English & French). Weidler Buchverlag (Berlin). German translation under the title Offene Schuhe [same publisher]. Loose Shoes -- Musical composition by Michael Riessler performed in Munich, Ulm, Frankfurt, Cologne, May 2000.

1999 THE PRECIPICE AND OTHER CATASTROPHES (Collected Plays, bilingual edition, English/German). Poetry Salzburg (Austria). Radio play adaptation by Deutschland Radio (Berlin) 1998.

1998 FEDERMAN : FROM A to X-X-X-X [A Recyclopedic Narrative, Edited by Larry McCaffery, Douglas Rice, Thomas Hartl, in collaboration with the author]. San Diego State University Press. Limited edition.

1996 THE LINE (Fiction, chapbook, special limited edition). The Club of Odd Volumes (Amherst, New York). Limited edition. Translated into French.

It was his generosity which initially impressed me, the continuity and inclusion in his storytelling. In fact, being in the same room with Federman is a lot like reading one of his books--sprinkled with double-dashes, at times conspicuously free of punctuation. At other times, he rewrites the story while you watch, and in his transparency, in his willingness to show you the form, you forget there is a writer at all...

CLICK HERE TO READ THE INNER-VIEW IN THE FALL 2006 ONLINE EDITION OF RAIN TAXI...

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